In “Everything Blooms,” Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar places the reader between a record shop of a small town in rural Pennsylvania and Homs, Syria, a city devastated by war. We are distinctly between the old and the new, the diaspora and the home-that-was, and between an old man and his eyeglasses. Basim is an older man, a record shop owner, and is nearly blind without his glasses. He is visited in his shop by a young boy whose father has recently passed away. The boy, named Nagib but who goes by Nate, says his father recalled Basim as the “only other Syrian in the whole country.” The reader knows this can’t be true, but the sentiment coupled with the fact that Basim did not know the boy’s father—in the small town or in Homs—sets the scene, places us in the in between. - Sonia Ali —- About the Author: Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar is the Syrian American author of the forthcoming debut novel The Map of Salt and Stars (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2018). She is a member of the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) and Tin House Writers Workshop alum, and a 2017–2020 Montalvo Arts Center Lucas Artists Program Literary Arts Fellow in fiction. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, PANK Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, The Normal School, and elsewhere. About the Guest Editor: Mizna is a Twin Cities non-profit arts organization that promotes contemporary expressions of Arab American culture. We publish the literary journal Mizna: Prose, Poetry and Art Exploring Arab America, produce the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, and offer varied other readings, performances, art projects, and community events involving an exceptionally talented and diverse range of local, national, and international Arab American artists. About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction. Recommended Reading is supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For other links from Electric Literature, follow us, or sign up for our eNewsletter.